Essay

The murder of more than 400 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai and My Khe by US soldiers on March 16, 1968, stands as one of the darkest days in the nation’s military history. It left an indelible stain on America’s record in Vietnam, the nation’s longest, least popular, and most...

Essay

As historians of the Vietnam War know all too well, the amount of documentation about the conflict available in US archives—to say nothing of foreign repositories—can be overwhelming. To master even a small slice of this material is a herculean...

Essay

What I know about the Vietnam War, I learned as a child from my father, Louis Raynor. At thirteen years old, I discovered an old, tattered, leather-bound diary in my parents’ chest of drawers. When I opened it, I immediately recognized my father’s handwriting. I was intrigued so I quietly took the small book and ran off to read it. Over the years, from his war diary and photographs, our many conversations, and oral history interviews, my father answered my endless questions about Vietnam.

Essay

Few sights or sounds conjure up the passion and purposefulness of the Southern Civil Rights Movement as powerfully as the freedom songs that provided a stirring musical accompaniment to the campaign for racial justice and equality in the region during the late 1950s and early 1960s.